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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Fifth Wisconsin Republican 8 Senator Recall Announcement Coming

MSNBC's The Ed Show has become the place for breaking news on the Republican 8 recall campaigns. John Nichols has correctly hinted about coming recall announcements at least twotimes on The Ed Show. Tuesday evening, Ed Schultz hinted that an announcement regarding the recall of a fifth Republican 8 senator is coming, and he said that senator is most likely Alberta Darling.

The short segment doesn't appear in the videos online, but another interesting piece of the show was when Ed interviewed a resident from Waukesha who attended yesterday's town hall on Paul Ryan's budget.

Before this week, petitions were already filed to hold a recall election for two of the eight Republican senators. Senator Dan Kapanke was the first senator whose district gathered enough signatures to trigger a recall, and Senator Randy Hopper was the second. With the announcements from yesterday and the filings today from the recall campaigns for Senators Luther Olsen and Sheila Harsdorf, half of the Republican 8 senators will face a recall election. Now, it sounds like at least five of the Republican 8 senators will face a recall election, and that means there's a good chance the Democrats can retake the majority of the Senate.

The Republican 8 are being recalled for outright lying to Wisconsin and voting to strip collective bargaining rights from Wisconsin workers. Two senators facing a recall election with just over half the allotted time to get signatures was quite amazing. Now, with just over a week since filing a petition for Randy Hopper's recall, it's unbelievable that two more senators have been added to the list, not to mention a likely third. It shows just how strongly Wisconsin feels about workers' rights.

In the same time, the Koch brothers and Republicans have been trying to recall eight Democrats. However, they haven't been able to gather enough signatures to recall even one.

The effort to collect enough signatures for Senator Robert Cowles is thought to be not far behind, though it's difficult to tell.

The magnitude of Wisconsinites who support democracy and workers' rights is becoming very clear. Keep up the good fight!

Even though the recall campaigns have been going extraordinarily well, these remaining efforts need all the help they can get because the deadline to collect signatures is quickly approaching - May 2nd.